Sweet 16 - it was so long ago and it meant so much to me.
On the day I turned 16 I scheduled a driving road test, failed it and had my bicycle stolen from where it had been chained up in a friend's backyard. It meant a couple more weeks of taking the bus and was a sad day for me.
My son started driver's education this week and at least I know he won't have the same 16th birthday memories as his mother. With new rules he won't be able to test for his license until after he has been 16 for a while. He has to take 30 hours of class time and six hours of in car training.
I remember the in car lessons being much more valuable and the classes being a lot of the "read along in the handbook" variety. I also remember the hours of stress with my dad in the vehicle and I can bet he wished he had an extra brake in the passenger seat.
I'm looking forward to the extra freedom of having a child with a driver's license, but know it will be a longer process for my children than it was for me.
I'm actually grateful to think he'll get a license at all. When he was younger we described him as the six-foot-six second kid because he couldn't be trusted to pay attention to anything more than six feet in front of him and apart from books, his attention span wasn't much longer than six seconds.
One of the greatest and scariest things about children is that they do grow up and change and mature. I am looking forward to practising his driving skills and overcoming the challenges of learning what he needs to know in a small town. We'll probably have to do some searching to find a place to practise parallel parking and he won't have to worry about traffic jams.
My dad gave me my first lessons in an empty exhibition ground in an old clunker he picked up for a few hundred dollars. I don't believe it was becuse he didn't trust me, but I know he was an exceptionally careful man.
I'm already keeping my eyes open for wide open flat areas to practise with my son and want to do as much as I can to make sure he will be careful on the road.
The current graduated licensing system means he won't be fully licensed until the end of high school. Looking a little closer at the rules thezero blood alcohol content and one passenger per seatbelt rules would havedelayed many of my classmates from full driving privileges when we were young.
Although it seems a little weird to me, and I'm probably too young for this,I'm still looking forward to having an extra driver in the car.
